“I remember going up a monumental staircase. It is staircases that confer the status of palace to Portuguese houses. (…) Then, I walked through the rooms, first the large ones, with stately, majestic dimensions, in what could have been the weapons rooms, or rooms aiming other representative functions. The grandeur is given by the volume of the spaces, by the proportions, by the light, by the colours of the walls, by the simplicity of the panelling of tiles. Anyone who imagines that the palatial appearance comes from artistic and decorative treasures of baroque taste will be disappointed. No. None of that. Of paintings, I remember only a few, namely a series of portraits of ancestors, a little furniture, but everything breathes dignity.” “Of course, all these are images that have only one parallel, and these quotes could have been taken from The Leopard, by Lampedusa, and the film of the same name, by Visconti. If there is a house in Portugal that could serve as a setting or inspire this novel, it would be the Palácio dos Condes de Ficalho [Palácio Ficalho], in Serpa. For all this, and more, I can say: this is the most beautiful house in Portugal.” Anísio Franco, “The Most Beautiful House in Portugal,” L+Arte Magazine, 2000